Want to see my proposal for Sunday SOUP?

The American Wandering Club

We would like to commission public art for city lots currently in disuse. Every year hundreds of lots inside the loop go unused as developers wait for an opportune time to build. In the project we will work with Houston artists to pay for materials and a small stipend to build a public artwork emphasizing cheap and recycled materials.


Inflatable sculptures, signage, found object salvage, performance art, site interventions and concrete art will be given priority. Inflatable sculptures make a great visual impact, and they can be easily removed and reused. Vinyl signs and boards, text pieces and culture jamming can be installed easily and are well suited to viewers in cars. Found materials abound in Houston as much as they did in Rauschenberg’s New York of the 50s and 60s, and Texan folk art has a long tradition of salvaged materials. Houston artists frequently work with scrap metal, recycled wood and building materials, echoing these two influences. Site interventions, like those of Gordon Matta-Clark, can be created clandestinely or in desolate environments without much adverse attention. Concrete is the creator of American cities, and is ideal for urban lots where they can be easily installed or even created on site. We hope to reclaim empty spaces.


There is no ownership of the public art works, they are paid for and built to be disowned, left on empty properties, atrophied, potentially destroyed and possibly stolen. Bequeathed to the city’s dynamic whim, The American Wandering Club will document the creation, installation and presentation of sculptures wandering Houston.

Submit to Sunday SOUP today!

Houstonist Photo of the Day

donttrytofixitjustdrinkup

via Houstonist

At Least Its Not Pay-To-Play

Local Artists needed (West Houston)

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Reply to: comm-ca8sg-1102593178@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}
Date: 2009-04-01, 3:12PM CDT


If you would like to have your artwork on display in nice gallery , please contact us . Your display will be free and only if sold gallery will take commission.

• Location: West Houston

BCAF

Hobby Airport at noon?

So there's a good aggregator about Houston, 29-95.com- and they asked Houstonians about the Bayou City Arts Festival- here's the list:

1. Memorial Park is a treasure
2. Ravens are in
3. Beer is better when consumed outdoors
4. Houston still has a lot of old hippies running around
5. There's only one working boat in Portofino, Italy, and the captain of it takes every photographer to the same spot
6. I have no artistic talent
7. I hate paying $10 to shop
8. Sparkly costs more
9. Some artists are full of shit, seriously
10. Why can't you get a good glass of a wine at a festival?

Pics From Relational Dialectics at Box13 Artspace

BOX13 Artspace through April 30, 2009


Chuck Ivy scopin' it out



@ right- Kelly Quarles' pantie butterflies flying over Irish Woody



Some East End cops stopped off to check it out,
seen thru A Series on My Mother, Tu-Anh Pham



totally best in show, funny ass shit
Three Important Objects, Christopher Pickett



closeup of 1/4 inch photo on giant white space



Hi Joanne!

Take the Power Away from the Powers that Be-- SUNDAY SOUP

Have you ever wanted an arts grant?

Does jumping through hoops not excite you?

Well, apply for the art grant funded by artists! Sunday SOUP!

Submit a short proposal, three sentences to a 1/2 page (w/ an image on the other half) to sundaysouphouston [at] incubate-chicago.org by Saturday, April 4th and come to the voting Sunday, April 5th at =SKYDIVE= from Noon til 4pm.

http://www.theskydive.org/

Take a minute, just jot down that idea you've had in the back of your mind that you never had a chance to execute. Draw it- wherever you are- and scan it, take a picture or draw it in Microsoft Paint. Write three sentences. Send them to Sunday SOUP.

Think of Sunday SOUP as grant writer training wheels. Do you have an idea of something fun, and can you draw it in a funny way? It doesn't have to be accurate, just interesting. The proposal process can be daunting, but refining your proposals can take incremental steps, evolving towards professional respectability. The best thing about Sunday SOUP is that it is democratic! It is judged by the artists who submit ideas and go to the party this Sunday, April 5th. They'll be looking for a good spark, not refinement. Have at it!



EVERYBODY VOTES

BEST IDEA WINS



Forward this to your friends! Let me know if you have questions! I'll see you at Sunday SOUP!

Sweetness!

Average Los Angeles reader March 2009
8:56

#1 linkage
Twitter


Visits from Rhode Island
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can't win 'em all

Letter from Linda Shearer

Today, March 31, marks the final day of my tenure at the CAMH as Interim Director. I have been honored to serve in this transitional role and will be leaving with great affection and respect for the CAMH, its devoted Board and Staff, its loyal donors and members, the artists, and the entire Houston art community. Many thanks to all of you for welcoming me so warmly when I first arrived and for making me feel right at home here in Houston. I know you will do the same for Bill Arning, who takes over the directorship of the CAMH in a week.

Houston is an extraordinary city. As a newcomer, I was struck by its charm, its good and not-so-good architecture, its beautiful parks, trees and tropical foliage, delicious and affordable restaurants of all ethnicities, and the friendliness of its citizens. And what will also stay with me forever is the vibrancy and excellence of the visual arts – through the museums, schools, alternative spaces, galleries, on-line and print magazines, and, of course, the individual artists themselves—natives and transplants alike.

This past year the CAMH has presented a wide range of provocative and important exhibitions, all of which are supplemented by creative educational programming. Perhaps one of my favorite moments was the exuberant performance by Houston’s Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre in relation to our current exhibition, The Puppet Show, which is on view through April 12. And you don’t want to miss the Teen Council’s 10th Anniversary exhibition, Contents under Pressure, a testimony to the artfulness of Houston teens and to the strength of the CAMH’s Teen Council. You have until May 10 to see it.

Every corner of our world is being challenged by the unprecedented changes in the economy and our non-profit cultural institutions are no exception. It is critical that every one of you reading this e-letter think about what you can do for this community. The CAMH needs your support now more than ever: become a member, attend an event, bid on a work of art at the gala auction, sponsor an exhibition. Remember the CAMH is here for you and it’s always free!

Warmly,
Linda Shearer

This is Art, not Lunch

This is Art, not Lunch

Have you ever submitted a proposal for a grant or alternative space?

The process can be deflating if you have ever been rejected by a proposal process. Is this idea good enough? Should I start all over, or use this again somewhere else? Is the project flawed? Am I flawed, my resume or my writing? Is the process flawed? These and other insistent questions plague one's mind without a doubt, at any phase in a career- from the bottom to the top. The alien nature of one's work in the mind of others and the perception of images and writing in absence of its context is indeterminable.

Well that is just horrible. What a demoralizing process!

Who started this? They should be kicked in the ass.

Worry not! Nancy and some guys from Chicago with a house in Detroit that made the cover of the New York Times just figured it out. They have taken the representational democracy of most US institutions and scrapped it, using technology and goodwill to try a model tested in New York, Chicago and Portland to Houston for the 4th (or so) recent experiment with communal art granting. Five dollars for soup is your 5 towards an art grant for someone at the party. This discourages people who usually pay $30 to submit to something, and hopefully encourages those who consider the practice either too much or not worth it.

So what do you say? Ready to put your money and your time where your mouth is?

Take a minute, just jot down that idea you've had in the back of your mind that you never had a chance to execute. Draw it- wherever you are- and scan it, take a picture or draw it in Microsoft Paint. Write three sentences. Send them to Sunday SOUP. Send them to sundaysouphouston [at] incubate-chicago.org

Lunch Bag a Day

Have you ever NOT submitted an art proposal?

Well this is the perfect time to start. Think of Sunday SOUP as grant writer training wheels. Do you have an idea of something fun, and can you draw it in a funny way? It doesn't have to be accurate, just interesting. The proposal process can be daunting, but you'll come to understand that refining your proposals can take incremental steps, evolving towards professional respectability. The two best things about Sunday SOUP is that it is democratic- so you can blame your potential loss on the populism, the lowest common denominator, and it is judged by the artists who submit ideas and go to the party this Sunday, April 5th so you won't lose points for unrefined representationalism. They'll be looking for a good spark, not a good attitude. Have at it!



Proposals due by Saturday, April 4nd at sundaysouphouston [at] incubate-chicago.org

View info HERE and HERE

Party at =SKYDIVE= Sunday April 5th, 12 noon til 4 pm



EVERYBODY VOTES

BEST IDEA WINS

just jot down that idea you've had in the back of your mind that you never had a chance to execute. Write three sentences. Send them to Sunday SOUP.

Leigh Boone, get well soon!

All the best to Leigh Boone, one of the tireless artists in the community in Montrose, who was involved in that ridiculous accident today where two firetrucks collided at the corner of Westheimer And Dunlavy- while she was riding her bike. Leigh is currently at Memorial Hermann.

Get well soon!!!!!!!!!!

Hericlitus Rules

Pics from "Dogs Bark" Norberto Gomez Jr. at the U Houston project space!

"The greatest problem with Hericlitus' ideas is that they make a kind of diabolical sense. Remember that Anaximander's concept of the boundless explained the perceptible by the imperceptible. Yet, if it is not perceptible what right do we have to say it exists. Hericlitus' statements posed the greatest challenge that Greek philosophy had to struggle with. Consider this; If everything we interact with is constantly changing we can never know anything about it because once we learned anything about it, it would change and become something else. At the same time scientific knowledge, as conceived by the Greeks, is knowledge that cannot be different than it is. Thus, scientific knowledge is not possible."

-Wallace Provast, God, Science and Religion

+++Plus: Check out Wax by the Fire for a nice review of the show!

Here's a snippet: "It’s art for an audience of artists, and Norberto Gomez, Jr.’s show exemplifies this. The selection of drawings and two videos on small monitors makes for a tight exhibition. Each work illustrates a aphoristic (I think I might have made that word up) fragment by Heraclitus the Obscure."

RIP Lou Saban

Lou Saban
1921-2009